


In Dreams

by beadedslipper



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 15:49:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2115729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beadedslipper/pseuds/beadedslipper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy has nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Bellarke fic. I’ve got at least three more in the works. I don’t even know…they just give me lots of feelings.

Bellamy has nightmares.

Not that this makes him special or anything.  With the lives that they’ve had, both on and off world, it would be a strong bet that the vast majority of their little community suffered from nightmares of one type or another.

What probably does make him different from the rest is that Bellamy marks his life by his nightmares.

There was the time before nightmares, when it was just him and his Mom on the Ark in their little bunk and there were no commanders stopping by to rub a hand over his mother’s ass and he never thought about being floated.  It happened, but he figures it was so long ago and so short that it doesn’t really count.

Then there was the first dream.  Octavia was his sister and his responsibility.  His days were broken up between the times when he could see her and when he had to pretend she wasn’t hiding right underneath his feet.  This was when his first nightmare happened and he spent his nights drowning in the fear that she would stay above the floor just a minute too long. 

_The soldiers would come barging in, stomping their nasty boots on the clean aluminum floor, and she would be right there, with her dark hair and darker eyes.  They had been laughing the second before but now those eyes were wide in fear, the same fear that made his heart race.  Somehow the soldiers knew who she was instantly.  They didn’t wait, didn’t hear any explanations.  They just grabbed them.  His mother, his sister, and him.  They dragged them all, screaming and crying, to the giant execution bay.  The doors of death.  Chancellor Jaha was there, sneering and heartless while they were all shoved into the chamber.  His mother pounded on the airlock, begging for them to spare her children.  He cradled Octavia in his arms, holding her tight and squeezing his eyes shut.  He heard them give the word and the doors opened and all three of them were sucked into the cold blackness of space._

The first time he had this dream, Octavia had been alive three days and he woke up screaming and drenched in sweat.  His mother, still exhausted, had shushed him quickly, asking him if he wanted to wake the baby.  After that Bellamy learned to have his nightmares silently.

It took a long time but seventeen years later his dream came true, sort of.  Octavia was discovered, the guard all came, but this time he was on the other side of the door watching as the air lock opened for his mother and his sister was dragged away to the detention wing.

For a year after that his nightmares changed, adapting and turning into the second dream, the second phase of his life.  It was the time between his sister’s discovery and her probable death and he dreamed about the day that she turned eighteen.

_He woke up and, just like always, the first thing he did was look at the calendar.  Unlike every other day, today’s date was circled in a red marker and he froze.  Today was the day.  It had been eighteen years since his mother put Octavia in his arms.  She was an adult according to the laws of the Ark.  He had always hoped that they wouldn’t punish her just for being alive.  Hoped, but never known.  Today he would find out.  A heavy fist slammed on his door and he slid quickly out of bed, ignoring the fact that he was only wearing some threadbare boxers.  He yanked open the door to see a grim-faced guard.  Before he even realized it he was back in front of those doors.  Just like last time, he was standing on the other side while a dark-haired woman looked back at him.  The only thing that kept him running to Octavia was the hard hand of a guard digging into his shoulder.  As the airlock closed on her she screamed at him.  She told him it was his fault._

Unlike the first dream, the second dream didn’t come true but he never could have predicted how things would change and by the time his brain caught up with his feet they were digging into the damp dirt of Earth.  His sister was next to him, so he didn’t mind too much.  At least, not until the third dream started.

_The privileged had come to earth, flanked by the guard and led by Jaha.  They arrived suddenly, marching into camp before he could grab his hidden supplies and disappear into the woods.  They didn’t waste any time, ignoring everybody else and tracking him down like an animal, announcing all along the way what he had done.  Traitor.  Murderer.  Criminal.  They tackled him, pressing his face into the mud of the place he was ruler of.  They stuffed him full of sedative until he was just a spectator in his own body and then they dragged him off, looking the other way when people hit and spat on him.  Of course, there was no floating on earth.  So they sank him.  They dragged him to a lake and tied rocks to his boots and threw him into the water.  He sank down and down and down.  The last thing he saw was a hazy reflection of sunlight off of two heads.  Both with long hair.  One brown, one blonde._

He would always wake up from this dream gasping for air with his blanket wrapped around his neck.  Dream number three was probably the worst yet.  Fortunately, some time after he hit adolescence he figured out a surefire way to get at least one solid night’s sleep.  He had always been good looking and, even though he was never sure whether his looks came from his mother or his bumfuck father, he knew how to use them.  Now, on earth, with the brand of de-facto leader on his back, it was even easier to lure a girl, or two, or sometimes three to his tent to distract him to the point of exhaustion.  They were always happy to do it, he made sure of that, and so he considered it a fair trade.

Of course, just as soon as dream number three started it seemed like it was gone again in the wake of Clarke somehow bullying Jaha into pardoning him.  It seemed too good to be true and when they weren’t both trying to make sure that the camp made it through another day, Bellamy watched her, part of him expecting her to turn around with that horrible know-it-all look on her face and say ‘Just kidding’.  But she didn’t.  She helped him.  And so he let it go.  But he didn’t stop watching her.

Then the grounder escaped and left space for dream number four.  He wondered if the phases of his life were getting shorter because he was probably going to die soon.  He wondered if his dreams got more violent because he was becoming more violent or if it was the other way around.  He wondered if he was wasting his time thinking such useless things when the grounders were coming.  Now he dreamt of invasion.

_Vicious and terrifying, a hundred thousand times better at surviving in this strange place than they would ever be, the grounders came like smoke underneath a door, soundless and deadly.  He woke up to the heat of flames and the sound of screams.  He stumbled to the tent flap, his pants unbuttoned around his hips and his bootlaces dragging on the ground.  He threw the flap back before freezing in place and swallowing a scream.  Fires licked the trees where tents used to be.  There was blood and body parts everywhere.  He didn’t think there was a single person left alive.  Right in front of his tent, like some sick totem pole, a spear was embedded in the ground, impaling Raven and Jasper and Finn and Octavia and Clarke.  He could taste bile in his mouth.  Before he could get sick a grounder appeared, like a demon coming out of the fog, clutching a dagger the size of his forearm that dripped green poison.   The last thing he saw was rotting teeth and red eyes._

Of course, it had to be during this dream that Clarke came to get him in the middle of the night about a fight that had broken out.  And of course he had to be thrashing and sweating.  And of course it had to be the one time that he happened to whisper her name when he saw her at the top of that bloody stack of people.  He woke up with a jolt to the sound of his name on her lips.  He could see she was concerned but before she could ask he barked at her, demanding to know why she was waking him up in the middle of the night.  If he happened to use that tone of voice that never failed to get Clarke’s back up, well, no one would ever call him a saint.  And he assumed that would be that.  It was a stupid assumption.  He underestimated (again) just how determined Clarke was.  He felt her eyes on him more than once, at the end of the day when he was heading back to his tent.  Mysterious gifts started showing up just outside the flap in the morning after he had a nightmare, whether it was a hot breakfast that he didn’t have to fight the crowd for or a canteen of water…or a canteen of Jasper’s moonshine.  She even went so far as to ask him if he was okay.  Twice.

He decided to chalk it up to her medic’s instincts.  Or just to her being nosy.

That was until the bridge.

There were grounders everywhere and he was completely terrified.  He hid it, as usual, but that didn’t stop it being true.  But there was Clarke, cool as anything, golden hair reflecting the sun while she stared down people who wanted nothing less than to kill her.  And then Jasper was yelling and bullets were flying and he knew he needed to take command and make sure everyone stayed alive.  Somehow he did it but in his dreams that night he saw that arrow arcing towards a golden head.

_Everything was eerily quiet.  He strained his ears, trying to hear what Clarke and the grounder leader were saying, but they were too far away._

_“There are grounders in the trees.” Jasper hissed._

_“What? Where?” He asked._

_“There!  Don’t you see them?” Jasper gasped.  “They’re going to attack.”  He jumped out of cover, firing wildly and shouting for Clarke to get down._

_He cursed, running out after Jasper and trying to keep the idiot from getting himself shot.  Clarke’s golden head spun, her eyes locking with his and missing the grounder leader pulling a knife.  He fired in perhaps the greatest shot of his life, knocking the blade out of her hand and away from Clarke’s abdomen.  His eyes raked over her, making sure she was unharmed.  Her lips quirked in a brief smile before she turned and started to sprint for the trees.  He relaxed, confident that she would make it to safety, only to see a black arrow fly, stark against the bright daylight.  It moved in slow motion through the air before suddenly and sickeningly sprouting from Clarke’s back.  Her eyes widened in brief shock before her face crumpled in agony and she collapsed._

_They laid her out face down on the table in the drop ship.  There was blood everywhere and people were screaming.  Octavia was pressing something to the wound while Raven frantically dialed the Ark.  Bellamy stared down at Clarke.  She was unconscious.  There was a trickle of blood coming from between her lips and he had never seen her look so pale._

_“Fuck!” Octavia hissed.  “She’s not breathing!”_

_“Her lung must have been punctured.” The crackle of Clarke’s mom’s voice over the com was not a welcome sound._

_“So what do we do?” He asked._

_There was a brief silence.  “There’s nothing we can do.  Not without proper medical tools.” The crackle sounded broken._

_“What do you mean?  Of course there’s something we can do!  There’s always something.  Clarke always finds a way to fix everybody!”_

_“Bell…” Octavia whispered._

_“No!” He growled.  “We are not just going to let her die.  Do something!” He screamed at the com.  “She’s your daughter!  Do something!”_

_“…I’m sorry…”_

_He ran over to Clarke, grabbing her by the shoulders and flipping her over, cradling her in his arms.  “Wake up damn you!  Clarke!  Clarke wake up!”_

“Bellamy?”

He jolted awake to see Clarke standing inside the tent by the flap.  He stared at her.  “What are you doing here?”

He was surprised to see her blush slightly and glance down at her hands.  He could see she was holding a bowl.  “I figured you were due for a nightmare tonight.  I was just going to drop this off but…I heard my name.”

Several things seemed to fall into place for him all at once.  A lot of them were about her but one very important one was about him.  He didn’t know how to explain and he couldn’t seem to say anything and he could see her getting more uncomfortable with every minute that he didn’t say something.  So he stopped trying and kissed her.

It seemed like it was the right thing to do because, after she made a brief sound of protest when the bowl hit the ground, she responded pretty quickly, opening her mouth for him and leaning her whole body against him.  Things didn’t go any farther than that and eventually they broke apart but after that things were different.

During the day they were closer and when they couldn’t be closer he was always aware of her in the back of his head.  They kissed.  A lot.  The first person to catch them at it was Octavia which meant it wasn’t long before the whole camp knew.  Instead of pissing people off it seemed to actually make them feel better.  He decided not to question it.  He especially decided not to question it when, on the days when people were being particularly stupid and Bellamy was ready to start bashing some heads, Clarke would slip her hand into his and somehow suck away all the stupid.  After a while they decided it would just be easier (not to mention way better) if she moved into his tent.  Then Bellamy discovered that Clarke had nightmares too, which made him feel not quite so pathetic.  Plus, it let him return the favor, holding her and whispering quiet words to her until her breathing slowed.  It was better this way and he considered himself monumentally stupid for not doing things this way from the minute they set foot on earth.  (Even if the more logical, not-Clarke-crazy part of him knows that it wouldn’t have worked that way.)

Now Bellamy is still afraid and still an asshole and he still has bad dreams more nights than he doesn’t, but now, when he wakes up sweating and panting, Clarke is there, leaning over him in concern, her warm, soft body pressing against his tense one.  She watches him, her eyes bright in the dark, one hand rubbing unconscious circles on his stomach, and waits.  And slowly he relaxes, all the fear draining out of his muscles like water through a funnel.  And she kisses him and whispers that she loves him and sometimes they have sex but mostly she lets him fall back to sleep and stay asleep and maybe wake up not quite so angry and not quite so afraid of the whole world.

Bellamy has nightmares, but he also has Clarke.

 


End file.
